Why Kid Rock is the perfect NHL decision

As we wrote previously, the NHL announced earlier today that Kid Rock will be the headline act at the All-Star game at the end of the month. Which is dumb for so many reasons, all of which could arguably on their own be enough to dissuade a more intelligent company from booking him as entertainment. Yet, the dumb people went ahead with the dumb thing anyway.

He’s not even kind of local.

Look, I get it. I’ve been to Tampa, I know what’s there. Entertainers from that neighborhood are few and far between. But at the very least, you could find someone from Florida, right? Let’s list a few artists from Florida that they could have invited instead, keeping in mind the All-Star Game is an event to get children to make their parents spend unreal amounts of money for a subpar entertainment experience: Flo Rida, Pitbull, Ariana Grande, We The Kings, Florida-Georgia Line, T-Pain, Enrique Iglesias, and Fifth Harmony. All from Florida, all more popular and relevant today than Kid Rock. Not to mention Tampa and Detroit are developing a pretty decent rivalry, so sure why not have a guy from the Detroit suburbs perform in Tampa. Better undermine what is pretty close to your only organic and contemporaneous rivalry, right?

He’s politically divisive, which the NHL has said they hate but are okay with now apparently?

The NHL has actively tried to avoid politics at every turn. That’s what happens when the players, coaches, and fans of your league grew up with more wealth than like 80% of Americans and don’t have any real concerns when political things happen. This is true whether these individuals are conservative or liberal. They’re generally unaffected by major policy decisions in any major way. For that reason, the fans are even more resistant to political messaging than NFL fans who do not tend to skew as wealthy. Kid Rock is not just a politically charged figure due to his history with the Confederate Flag, but also because he ran a campaign for the US Senate. Like a year ago. This isn’t ancient history, people.

His music sucks.

Pretty self-explanatory, moving on.

His music is unpopular.

Kid Rock has as many monthly Spotify listeners as Yellowcard. If you know who Yellowcard is, you’ll understand why this is a valid point. If you don’t know who Yellowcard is, well that kinda proves my point too, doesn’t it?

And that’s why he is the perfect NHL decision.

There are no reasons to have this guy performing. None. But he is. This is a partial list of reasons that should, on their own, disqualify this guy from performing at the NHL All-Star Game. And they’re all true.

Truth be told, I was probably never going to watch the musical performance at the NHL All-Star Game. Hell, I was probably never going to watch the ASG anyway. But this kind of thing upsets me so much because it takes the stupidity of the NHL and puts it all in front of me. It says “This is how dumb we are. This is how dumb we are when we make decisions about who to feature prominently in our commercials. This is how dumb we are when we make rule changes. This is how dumb we are when we make any major decision affecting the future of this sport. We are the people who booked Kid Rock to perform in 2018. And we are in charge of your favorite sport.”